Dear Natie:

Thank you for addressing me as dearest this time, it feels nice.

“but.. what if I after everything you have read and I have put him through that he is right that I am the devil or this kind of a horrible human … was this breakup wrong, am I wrong for letting go .. I don’t know what’s real anymore”- from reading all that you shared, and based on my experience communicating with thousands of members over the years, I say: (1) he is wrong, (2) you are not at all the devil or any kind of a horrible woman, (3) the breakup was right for you!

Guilt is a very convincing emotion and state of mind, even when it is not valid at all. And this is the case here: this guilt is causing you to  believe something that is not true. Unfortunately, you can’t get rid of it easily.

You know the term being “under the influence” in regard to alcohol, right? Well, when you think under the influence of guilt, your thinking is distorted, you just can’t “know what’s real anymore”, just like you wrote. So, best thing you can do is calm down, and only later, when you are calm (and not under the influence of guilty, even if temporarily so)- then think about what is real.

I will be away from the computer for over an hour. You can post again anytime, better when calm.

anita

Dear natie:

You are welcome and thank you for your kind words! It’s not too much trouble for me to elaborate on the three points:

(1) “he is wrong”- he is emotional, you say, but when you told him about the affair you had with a woman he was not at all emotional, didn’t seem to bother him (maybe because the affair was with another woman vs. a man. I don’t know).  Fast forward (8 months, was it?), he brings it up- not because he was in pain about it- but because he wanted to cause you to feel pain. Guilt is a form of pain, and in my personal experience, it is a severe kind of emotional pain. He wanted to cause you severe emotional pain (and he succeeded) for his selfish purpose of manipulating you to do what he wanted you to do.

This makes him Wrong.

(3) “the breakup was right for you!”- it is Right for you to break from a Wrong man

“(2) you are not at all the devil or any kind of a horrible woman”- you are just not. But because you felt like a horrible girl when you brought a bad grade to your mother, and when you otherwise failed to make your mother happy (or to prevent her from being unhappy)- deep inside, you believe that you are a bad girl. An allegedly bad girl grows up to be (in her mind) a bad woman.

This core belief does not disappear without work, over time. You are  vulnerable to be made to feel guilty by manipulative people like your ex-boyfriend in the future, for as long as you don’t address and resolve (as much as possible) this untrue core belief. If you want to start addressing it with me, you are welcome. Otherwise, you are welcome to post again anytime, on this topic and on any other topic.

anita

Dear Natie:

You are welcome. “would you say that I was controlling..?”- I would say you were not controlling of him. You were trying to control your life– which is fair, it’s what you are supposed to do.

“was I also wrong in wanting to land a job/ career in an industry I like..?”- no, you were not wrong: it is your life, your career- it is right (not wrong) that you decide what career to choose in your life.

Addressing the core-belief will be difficult. As you do that, you will sometimes feel uncomfortable and want to stop. When that happens, let me know. You are always welcome to stop: there is no pressure from me that you continue when you don’t want to. It  is the same principle as the above: it’s your life, you decide!

Also, you may be uncomfortable sharing personal things on a public forum, maybe afraid someone who knows you or your family will be reading and figuring out it’s you, not wanting to embarrass your family by sharing private matters. So, remember to not share any real names (of people or places), and you don’t have to share details that are not relevant, like the very exact ages of people, the titles of their jobs, their looks, etc. Remain vague in regard to some things.

So, let’s start, what happened when you brought a bad grade home: what did you feel when you first got the bad grade, what happened next.. ?

anita

Dear Natie,

I’ve been catching up with your posts on this thread, since when you posted originally I was on holidays and rarely at the computer. I see that you’re questioning whether it was a good idea to initiate the breakup, and further, whether you’re an evil person, a devil, for focusing on your career first and not wanting to settle down just yet.

This is what you wrote on the subject of career vs settling down:

he wanted to get married from the first year of our relationship and i want to be with you but lets first figure out our careers and do our MBAs and then we can settle.

he said some ugly words about the fact that he doubts any guy would want to be with me with my mentality ( not wanting to marry right now and join him at the states because im still not ready and we agreed on marrying at 27 and so i arranged my career and studies to happen prior to that time-

he always told me he was proud of me and how motivated i am in my career and he feels bad for my bad luck in my unstable jobs but suddenly i was told twice that i was selfish and i put work as a priority because if you love someone you need to compromise and life is short and work in a specific field is not important

im putting alot of effort into my career and studies at least for the next 3 years and refusing to tie the not in the meantime,

im asking too much from a guy to wait all these years ( especially that he met me at 21/22) just for me to start my career and get my MBA , , in his own words ” no guy waits all that long , all i want is to be with you , i dont see why you cant make that happen even if it means to change your entire career you can always find another job..

he saw my latest internship to the UAE ” as a selfish move and that i did it for my own good and not to the good of the relationship” –> which is a point i can not understand till now

we had a huge fight two days ago where he ended up acusing me of being slefish and just want to follow my career

i asked him to continue doing our long distance relationship like any other couple but he said that this is not love and im not putting him as a priority then

It appears that from the start of your relationship, he wanted to settle down relatively soon (presumably after you both graduate?), but you didn’t want that and expressed that to him. You then agreed to get married at 27, after you get your MBA and/or settle in your career. So it seems that in the beginning, he agreed to wait and supported you in pursuing your career and further education first. But after a while, specially after his father’s death, he seems to have changed and started accusing you of being selfish for putting your career first before him.

Would you say that’s true – that you initially had an agreement, and then the circumstances changed, and as a result, his attitude changed too?

It could be that his father’s death was a big emotional shock to him, and suddenly he became more vulnerable, asking you to accommodate for that and change the original agreement (of getting married at 27). But you had and still have the same goals and ambitions as before (nothing wrong with that), and didn’t want to abandon them just like that. So you’re sticking by the old plan, and he’s asking you to change it, for his sake.

I don’t think you’re evil for wanting to accomplish your career goals. I don’t think he is evil either for feeling vulnerable and perhaps lonely, and wanting to settle down sooner. I still think it would be best if the two of you could talk honestly and try to understand each other’s motives. But if every discussion you have ends up in an argument and him accusing you of being selfish, then he isn’t willing to see your point.

What I am noticing as a potential problem is that perhaps he doesn’t feel heard by you, because you tend to immediately offer practical advice on how to reduce his pain. For example, when his father died, you said you were sending him prayers, meditations, suggesting therapy etc, but when talking to him on the phone, you weren’t very supportive but moody, and perhaps he sensed it. Perhaps, rather than hearing about ways to reduce his pain, he just wanted to be heard and his pain acknowledged. Or, when he called you from the US in the middle of the night, crying, you told him to man up and were upset that he woke you up:

3 days after his arrival to the states he called me crying in the middle of the night and i was like really? and i started talking with a high pitch but all my content was me telling him the following ” its tough  i know we all been there , i know people who kept on crying for 6 months and wanting to leave and then they survived it ,, i went through this just like you last year and its going to be ok, you need to man up as your father told you ,, etc..” anyways we ended up arguing as he was like why are you screaming why are you acusing me of waking you up , why cant you be more loving by telling me that its ok to go back home or to keep on crying and that its difficult and nothing forces you to stay , etc…

It seems like he didn’t feel heard by you, because you sort of attacked him for calling you in the middle of the night, and then you told him to man up and “get over it”.

You said you were like a mother to him in the first 2 years of your relationship, helping him in so many ways and teaching him how to improve himself. Anita likened your behavior to that of a practical mother. Indeed, you seem to be very practical and pragmatic in your approach: if there’s a problem, you seek to fix it as quickly as possible. But you may be missing the soothing, comforting quality of that “mother” – having compassion and understanding, and simply listening to the other person, being there for them, “sitting with their pain”, so to speak.

It doesn’t mean you need to be a mother to him, either a practical and problem-solving, or a comforting one, but I am just saying that there might be an energy about you where you tend to seek solutions before you really empathize with the person. I wonder if you see any truth in this?